A parked domain name is one that is taken, but it is not connected to any other service - web or e-mail hosting. To put it differently, this kind of domain will not load any real content when you type it within a web browser, but no one can take it as you've already registered it and you are its owner. The main advantage of acquiring a domain and parking it afterwards is that you are able to keep it and not worry that somebody else could possibly register it meanwhile if, for example, the site for it is not ready yet. You could create a short-term Under Construction webpage for a parked domain while you're working on your website, or forward it to another web address - temporarily or permanently. The second option can be employed when you have already registered domain.com, for instance, and you obtain domain.net and domain.org, so that you can protect a brand name or a trademark. In such a case, the .net and .org domain addresses can be parked and directed to the .com as you do not need individual websites for them.